Holidays Can Be Hard On a Girl

Lily is recovering from her spaying this week. She is not entertaining visitors.

The Best Take Ever On Shit

From '20,000 Roads – The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music'.

Discussing Parsons reaction to the rise of music influenced by his seminal but poorly selling work with the Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers

The greatest affront had to be the June 1972 release of the Eagles' self-titled debut, which went platinum (that is, sold at least one million units) and hit number twenty-two. The single "Witchy Woman" -went to number nine, "Take It Easy" to number twelve, and "Peaceful Easy Feeling" hit number twenty-two. A band offering the most pallid rendition country rock was a smash—with Gram's former bandmate Bernie Leadon, at its core. Eagles drummer Don Henley said of himself: "I have a high tolerance for repetition." Gram lacked this quality. Henley's abundance of it helped provide the Eagles' music with its soulless, over-rehearsed, antiseptic, schematic, insincere, sentimental core. The Eagles managed to deny every roots-music source of their sound. Their country rock—with its self- satisfaction, misogyny, absence of pain, junior high emotions, pop hook-- and facile faux virtuosity—was more than dumb enough to please the broadest American audience. And still is. The Eagles were and remain arguably the most consistently contemptible stadium band in rock. Gram famously. referred to their music as "a plastic dry-fuck." He bore the Eagles a special loathing, as any sane listener might.

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

Merry Christmas!

Before we head home, some real holiday wishes ...

Merry Christmas to all of you and thanks for reading, your comments and your nagging when I fall behind.

Some special shout outs

To Mr G. Baker, Mr. JK, Mr. B.O.B. and Mr. 'Big Boom' SM for being great playmates and sources of inspiration, perspiration and frustration. You are my lifeline to my soul. Thanks to CL, TA, Mrs B.O.B. And AM for letting their boy's come over and play.

To Mr. TLW of China, spending his first holiday in the People's Republic of Walmartinventory. Your observation and mails have meant more than I can say.

To my Princess GSH (soon to be just GS), my godson AH and his sister IH all my love. Thanks to you there will always be a family in Washington for me to love.

Alex, here's to you and your reports from All Together Austin and Barely Boston.

And finally, to Mr. Dan holding down the fort @ GT12 Central while I visit the newly democratized state of Ohio all my love and thanks for giving me my life.

BTW, Lily said hi to all of you before she opened her stocking and started chewing on Christmas Present.

Christmas Presence

It's been a great Holiday season for Barack Obama and his supporters.

As we leave to head back to Toledo and our family of origin the sugarplum visions dancing in our head are many and mostly they are about Barry O.

Just today we read the NH poll that puts him ahead of HRC after once being down by 14.

This morning we open up our New York Times and get glittering gifts from Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich.

MoDo slashes at the comforter many of HRC's fans wrap themselves in - the fantasy that Bill back in the White House would be a good thing.

“They’re not Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, who had jealousy as the lifeblood of their marriage,” said one writer who has studied the pair. “The lifeblood of their marriage is crisis, coming to each other’s rescue.”

...Hillary advisers noted that when Bill was asked by a supporter in South Carolina what his wife’s No. 1 priority would be, he replied: C’est moi! “The first thing she intends to do is to send me ...” he began.

He got so agitated with Charlie Rose — ranting that reporters were “stenographers” for Obama — that his aides tried to stop the interview.

He also got in the way of her message with stretchers about opposing the Iraq war from the start, and — in a slap at Obama — deciding not to run in ’88 because he lacked experience. Truth is, he didn’t run for fear of bimbo eruptions.

While making a speech in Iowa, The Associated Press’s Ron Fournier reported, Bill used the word “I” 94 times in 10 minutes, while mentioning “Hillary” just seven times. At a London fund-raiser, one Hillaryite said, it took him nearly half an hour to mention her.

As the Arkansas journalist Max Brantley told the Billary biographer Sally Bedell Smith, “He’s always evangelizing for the church of Bill.”

... If voting for Obama is a roll of the dice, as Bill suggests, voting for Billary is a sure bet: an endless soap opera.

Frank Rich then sums up what it's all about.

But if Mr. McCain has so far resisted slapping down the upstart in his party, Bill Clinton has shown no such self-restraint about Barack Obama. Early this month the former president criticized the press for not sufficiently covering the candidates’ “record in public life” and thereby making “people think experience is irrelevant.”His pique boiled over on Charlie Rose’s show on Dec. 14, when he made
his now-famous claim that the 2008 election will be a referendum on whether “no experience matters.” He insinuated that Mr. Obama was tantamount to “a gifted television commentator” and likened a potential Obama presidency to a roll of the dice.

Attention Bill Clinton: If that’s what this election is about, it’s already over. .. it’s not experience that will be decisive in determining the next president.

... The principal foreign-policy Clinton alumni in Mr. Obama’s campaign include Susan Rice, a former assistant secretary of state, and Tony Lake, the former national security adviser and a prewar skeptic who said publicly in February 2003 that the Bush administration had not made the case that Saddam was an “imminent threat.” Ms. Rice, in an eloquent speech in November 2002, said that the Bush administration was “trying to change the subject to Iraq” from the war against Al Qaeda and warned that if it tried to fight both wars at once, “one, if not both, will suffer.” Her text now reads as a bookend to Mr. Obama’s senatorial campaign speech challenging the wisdom of the war only weeks earlier that same fall.

Mrs. Clinton’s current team was less prescient. Though it includes one of the earlier military critics of Bush policy, Gen. Wesley Clark, he is balanced by Gen. Jack Keane, an author of the Bush “surge.” The Clinton campaign’s foreign policy and national security director is a former Madeleine Albright aide, Lee Feinstein, who in November 2002 was gullible enough to say on CNBC that “we should take the president at his word, which is that he sees war as a last resort” — an argument anticipating the one Mrs. Clinton still uses to defend her vote on the Iraq war authorization.

... What Mrs. Clinton clearly has learned from her White House experience, as she reminds us, is to strike back at her critics. Unfortunately, she has assimilated those critics’ methods as well. Attacks on Mr. Obama’s record and views are fair game. But the steady personal attacks — the invocations of “cocaine” and “Hussein” and “madrassa” by surrogates — smell like the dirty tricks of the old Clinton haters. The Clinton-camp denials that these tactics have been “authorized” sound like Karl Rove’s denials of similar smear campaigns against John McCain in 2000.

If Mrs. Clinton is to win, she won’t do so by running on that kind of experience but by rising above it. Bill Clinton wouldn’t have shifted gears to refer to his wife constantly as a “change agent,” however implausibly, if his acute political sensors didn’t tell him that Americans are not just willing but eager to roll the dice.

In late April 2003, a week before “Mission Accomplished,” Mr. Feinstein could be found on CNN saying that he was “fairly confident” that W.M.D. would turn up in Iraq. Asked if the war would be a failure if no weapons were found, he said, “I don’t think that that’s a situation we’ll confront.” Forced to confront exactly that situation over the next year, he dug in deeper, co-writing an essay for Foreign Affairs (available on its Web site) arguing that “the biggest problem with the Bush pre-emption strategy may be that it does not go far enough.”

And finally, David Broder looks at how Barack has done it

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Barack Obama has become a one-trick pony. But what a
trick it is!

The stump speech he has developed in the closing stages of the pre-Christmas campaign is a thing of beauty, a 40-minute oration delivered without notes that is powering his gains in the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 and the first primary here in New Hampshire five days later.

Hillary Clinton has nothing to match it. John Edwards has periodic bursts of eloquence. But Obama has reached the point of being able to deliver the speech on demand, and to reach audiences with assured effect. It has become his security blanket.

... finally, comes the peroration, quoting Martin Luther King Jr. on the "fierce urgency of now," in explaining why he can't patiently wait his turn to run for president. It's a bit of a reach because he wants to draw another contrast with Hillary. Unlike others, he says, he has not planned to run for years and he does not regard the presidency as his entitlement.

The closing anecdote is based on an incident at a rally in Greenwood, S.C., where, on a miserable morning, with a meager crowd, a single black woman in the audience first revived Obama's spirit by shouting out encouragement, and then got everyone chanting, responsively, "Fired up!" "Ready to go!"

As he tells the familiar story, Obama segues from a conversational tone to a shout, and explains that the chant has now become his trademark and slogan. So, he tells his listeners, "I've got one thing to ask you. Are you FIRED UP? Are you READY TO GO? FIRED UP! READY TO GO!"

And then, as the shouting becomes almost too loud to bear, he adds the five words that capsulize his whole message and sends the voters scrambling back into their winter coats and streaming out the door: "Let's go change the world," Obama says. And it sounds as if he means it.

In every audience I have seen, there is a jolt of pure electric energy at those closing words. Tears stain some cheeks -- and some people look a little thunderstruck.

Hey, I teared up reading it.

It's going to be a great Christmas .

Know Hope.

Holiday Melodies

There is still war and famine in Africa. And this was the Humanity high point of the '80's

Holiday Memories

1975. Fashion is not progressing. At that age though, the beard was tres' important if you wanted to get beer.

Holiday Memories

1971. And this is just the beginning of the decline of american Fashion

Holiday Memories

This didn't last.

Holiday Memories

Life Partner, Lifelong Friend and Aging Blogger preparing to hit Chi-town's Magnificent Mile and so still excited about Christmas in the City

Holiday Melodies ... and Memories

This is a tradition that we are missing this year ... Darlene Love on Letterman singing the second best Christmas song of all time.

Attend(ed) The Tale

Compare and Contrast: Patti Lupone and Micheal Ceveris in 2006; Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter this year.

The Pictures tell a story ... Sweeney on film is a grim, blood-drenched, grim, adequately (mostly) sung, grim, gorgeous, grim, scarey and a bit grim.

It's hard for me to guage it. I liked it but it didn't feel as satisfying as the stage versions. The number of songs cut and the increase in speaking (though not ridiculous as in Rent) are distracting to me but worked to keep the movie a reasonable length.

I will say, again, that I am sure that a completely sung-through movie is less 'artificial' than one where people suddenly break into song every so often. I know Hollywood is petrified by 'the musical' as an art form (cf the entire add campaingn for Sweeney) but no favors are being done by underlining how strange singing is by only using it sparingly.

But all the humour is gone. Some of this may be the result of Bonham-Carter's singing which is thin and free of emotional complexity. I read that her performance is 'more internal' than previous, but it's mostly just underdeveloped. She can be quite funny, but not here. And for whatever reason, Burton didn't seem interested in much humor anyway. Even Sacha Baron-Cohen's scene ( a role that is high camp on stage) is dark and muted.

So, it's a different work. It's a fine one too. The screen allows for some really fabulous, slasher flick dying and body disposal. The character of Tobias, a club-footed, half-wit late-teen on stage is now a boy of about 10, The young lovers are more beautiful (Hollywood) and a lot less ditsy. And Alan Rickman is always a joy.

Attend(ing) The Tale

NY times calls it a work of genius.

I'll be there today when the theater opens.

Now that's what I call a christmas Present.

Iowa Is For ?????

Can the truth be found in Iowa?

Our friends are looking ....

Here's the latest report from the road

The rest can be found here

Holiday Melodies

Gotta Have This One.

Here's where it started

Holiday Memories

The Fender Bass, The Old Friend and one of the thousand drummers ... 12/75

Holiday Memories

Not ours, but rather, those of Mr. SM, intrepid drummer friend and really tall elf ....

Holiday Blurrrrrr

Sweet Buddha, this time of year can be stressful. I have spent the last two days doing Christmas shopping; Last weekend GT12 entertained our oldest firend and one of our newest (i.e. 'new Lady-friend).

Anywoo ... at least I'm not trapped in a spaceship being forced to watch bad Sci-Fi.

I do miss Mystery Science Theater 3000 like I miss my '73 Fender Precision Bass.

Holiday Melodies

Let's post this one today in honor of New Jersey, which today outlawed the Death Penalty.

The most peace oriented achievement this year by Democrats.

I know John would be happy

It's A Blunderful Life

A Holiday Fave From GT12's love, Stephanie Miller

Best One Ever!

It's Official.

Lily's Vet and Vet Staff have declared her the best Dachsund ever.

Holiday Melodies

The touching family favorite "You Ain't getting Shit for Christmas"

Holiday Memories

An early exploration of multi-media

Why Shakespeare Matters

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." Henry VI

Alas, poor American Justice, I knew thee well ...

WASHINGTON - Negative news coverage may have cost former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales his job, but it won him a dubious honor Wednesday from a magazine published by the American Bar Association: Lawyer of the Year.

Additionally, the ABA Journal named Gonzales' successor, Attorney General Michael Mukasey, as its top lawyer for 2008 — mostly in anticipation of how often he'll be in the media spotlight for trying to repair the beleaguered Justice Department.
The monthly magazine gave the awards to lawyers who made the most news, said editor and publisher Edward A. Adams.

"Think about Time magazine's Person of the Year," Adams said in an interview. "In years past they've named people like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin. So we're not suggesting by these awards that these are the best lawyers in any sense of the word. We are saying they are the most newsworthy — and perhaps also the best."

Why Rock & Roll Is Better Than Sports

Drugs + Rock = Exile On Main Street, Led Zeppelin IV, The White Album

Drugs + Baseball = An *, 7 returned Olympic Gold Medals (so far), Floyd Landis

A former trainer for Roger Clemens provided information about Clemens’s steroid use to investigators for former Senator George Mitchell, who will release a report Thursday on steroids in baseball, two lawyers familiar with the investigation said.

The trainer, Brian McNamee, also provided information about steroid use by pitcher Andy Pettitte and first baseman David Segui, the lawyers said. McNamee spoke to Mitchell’s investigators under pressure from federal prosecutors investigating the use of steroids in baseball.

Mitchell is to release his 304-page report, covering 20 months of investigation, Thursday afternoon. More than 50 players are named in the report, according to individuals who saw the report.

(continue reading ...)

Ike Turner, 1931 - 2007

The man who gave the world the first Rock-and-Roll record has died.

From the NY Times:

Ike Turner, the R&B musician, songwriter, bandleader, producer, talent scout and ex-husband of Tina Turner, died on Wednesday at his home in San Marcos, Calif., a San Diego suburb. He was 76.

His death was announced by Jeanette Bazzell Turner, who married Mr. Turner in 1995. She gave no cause of death, but said he had had emphysema.

... Mr. Turner was best known for discovering Anna Mae Bullock, a teenage singer from Nutbush, Tenn., whom he renamed Tina Turner. The Ike and Tina Turner Revue made a string of hits in the 1960s before the Turners broke up in 1975.

... In high school he formed a group called the Kings of Rhythm. B. B. King helped that band get a steady weekend gig and recommended it to Sam Phillips at Sun Studios in Memphis. The band had been performing jukebox hits, but on the drive from Mississippi to Memphis, its members decided to write something of their own.
Their saxophonist, Jackie Brenston, suggested a song about the new Rocket 88 Oldsmobile. The piano-pounding intro and the first verse were by Mr. Turner, and the band collaborated on the rest; Mr. Brenston sang.

Sun was not yet its own record label, so Mr. Phillips sent the song to Chess Records. It went on to sell a half-million copies. “I was playing rhythm and blues,” Mr. Turner wrote. “That’s all I was playing.” His book says he was paid $20 for the record.

... in 1958, he heard Anna Mae Bullock, who joined the group and quickly became its focal point as Tina Turner. The band was soon renamed the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. Her lead vocal on “A Fool in Love” started a streak of Top 10 R&B hits for the revue and also reached the pop Top 40. It was followed by “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” in 1961. The duo became stars on the grueling so-called chitlin’ circuit of African-American clubs.

River Deep, Mountain High

Tina walked out on him in 1975. Mr. Turner, already abusing cocaine and alcohol, spiraled further downward during the 1980s while Ms. Turner became a multimillion-selling star on her own. A recording studio he had built in Los Angeles burned down in 1982, and he was arrested repeatedly on drug charges. In 1989 he went to prison for various cocaine-possession offenses and was in jail when he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

But he had a windfall when the hip-hop duo Salt ’N’ Pepa used a sample of his song “I’m Blue” for their 1993 hit “Shoop,” which reached No. 4 on the Billboard pop chart.

Mr. Turner set out to reclaim his place in rock history. He wrote his autobiography with a British writer, Nigel Cawthorne. At the 2001 Chicago Blues Festival he performed with Pinetop Perkins in a set filmed for the Martin Scorsese PBS series “The Blues.” He renamed his band the Kings of Rhythm and re-recorded “Rocket 88” for the 2001 album “Here and Now.” He toured internationally, recording a live album and DVD, “The Resurrection,” at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2002. He visited high schools during Black History Month with an antidrug message. He recorded a song with the British band Gorillaz in 2005.

In the end, the music business embraced him: Mr. Turner’s 2006 album, “Risin’ With the Blues,” won the Grammy this year as best traditional blues album.

Desperate, Cheap and Stoopid

Her Royal Clintoness, of course.

Once again clutching awful public policy based on fear as an excuse for 'experience'.

Andrew reports

The hints were there already, but now a Clinton surrogate is flaying Obama for his refreshing candor about past drug-use. Again: this is the politics of fear. Check out the classic Clinton defensive crouch with respect to the GOP:

"The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight ... and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use," said Shaheen, the husband of former N.H. governor Jeanne Shaheen, who is planning to run for the Senate next year. Billy Shaheen contrasted Obama's openness about his past drug use -- which Obama mentioned again at a recent campaign appearance in New Hampshire -- with the approach taken by George W. Bush in 1999 and 2000, when he ruled out questions about his behavior when he was "young and irresponsible."

So a Clintonite is urging that Obama follow W's example. Somehow, I don't think this is going to help. But it's a sign of how worried they are that their coronation has turned into something a little more complicated.

Time's Top Cartoons of 2007 - #1

Time's Top Cartoons of 2007 - #5

Quite Seasonal, no?

Time's Top Cartoons of 2007 - #10

Just Sayin'...

"For a candidate who 50% of the country says they won't consider voting for, raising questions about electability is a curious strategy," - Bill Burton, Obama's spokesman.

Holiday Melodies

Gabba Gabba Ho Ho Ho!

Department Of Desperate Stretching

Loony, Prada-loving, sexy-long-time-male-aide-having Closet Case strains to tie it all together:

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Nuclear arms proliferation, environmental pollution and economic inequality are threats to world peace -- but so are abortion, birth control and same-sex marriage, Pope Benedict XVI said in a statement released by the Vatican Tuesday (Dec. 11).

"The Human Family, a Community of Peace" is this year's papal message for the World Day of Peace, which will be observed Jan. 1.

Presenting the nuclear family as the "first and indispensable teacher of peace" and the "primary agency of peace," the 15-page document links sexual and medical ethics to international relations.

Holiday Memories

At least partial memories ... I'm not sure who that woman is

A Holiday Memory Olive Branch

Rush & Christmas - For Alex and untold others

Oh Well

I never thought we'd succeed in Wood County

Latta Holds GOP Seat in OH-5

According to an Associated Press call, Bob Latta (R) has been elected in a special election to fill the OH-5 vacant congressional seat in northwest Ohio beating Robin Weirauch (D).

Though the district is heavily Republican, there were late indications in the campaign that Democrats might possibly possibly take the seat. Both parties spent heavily on ads in the last week.

Holiday Melodies

The Greatest Christmas Song of All Time.

Holiday Memories

As I recall, this did not go well.

Not An Onion Headline

Congress to say Christmas is important.

Sun and Moon declared good too

This is one straight from the headlines of the Onion. Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) has introduced a resolution (H.Res. 847) saying, and I am not making this up, that Christmas and Christians are important. The House is scheduled to vote on this groundbreaking resolution on Tuesday.

ArkansasTransparency

Like HRC, Mickey-Huck wants to run on his background but not on the documents of that background:

Mother Jones has “contacted the Huckabee campaign and asked if it would help make his previous sermons available, the campaign replied in a one-sentence email that it had received multiple requests for such material and was ‘not able to accommodate’ them.”

You Know It's True If They're Telling Matt Lauer

Think Progress Reports :

Former CIA Interrogator: We Carried Out Torture Because The White House Told Us To

In an interview last night with ABC News, John Kiriakou — the CIA official who headed the team that interrogated al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah — said that Zubaydah was waterboarded, but defended those actions as having prevented “maybe dozens” of planned attacks and “probably saved lives.”

But despite his vigorous defense of his past conduct, Kiriakou says he now views what he did as torture and says that he would not recommend those tactics going forward. “We don’t need enhanced techniques to get that nugget of information,” he said in an interview with Matt Lauer this morning on The Today Show.

Lauer asked Kiriakou where the permission was given to carry out torture. “Was the White House involved in that decision?” Lauer asked. “Absolutely,” Kiriakou said, adding:

This isn’t something done willy nilly. It’s not something that an agency officer just wakes up in the morning and decides he’s going to carry out an enhanced technique on a prisoner. This was a policy made at the White House, with concurrence from the National Security Council and Justice Department.

Lauer then referenced an earlier interview he did with President Bush, in which Bush said he was assured by the Justice Department “we were not torturing.”

“I disagree,” Kiriakou said.

Report: Nation's Wealthy Cruelly Deprived Of True Meaning Of Christmas

We Torture ... And We Tape!

A Catch-up on the destruction of videotapes documenting waterboarding and other torture techiniques employed by ... well, us.

Follow the bouncing tapes

In the Bush administration's first attempt to explain the destruction of videotapes showing the interrogations of suspected al-Qaida members, CIA director Michael Hayden said the decision to destroy the tapes was made "within the CIA."

That version of the story quickly gave way when as-yet unidentified administration officials revealed that former White House counsel Harriet Miers knew about the tapes and had told the CIA that she didn't think they should be destroyed.

Now, as Hayden prepares for a closed-door session today with the Senate Intelligence Committee, there's a third version of the story to consider. An unidentified former intelligence official says that lawyers -- plural -- within the White House and the Justice Department advised the CIA not to destroy the tapes in 2003, but that the CIA continued to push for permission to do so, and the White House never quite got around to saying no.

"They never told us, 'Hell, no,'" the former intelligence official tells the New York Times. "If somebody had said, 'You cannot destroy them,' we would not have destroyed them."

The CIA declined to respond to questions from the Times, and the White House, citing ongoing investigations and the advice of counsel, won't say anything further about the matter at all. In an uncharacteristic bit of understatement Monday, White House press secretary Dana Perino said that she could "see where" the "cynicism that usually drifts" up from the White House press briefing room might "come up in this regard."

My Best Friend Is All Over This

Steve, my dearest bestest friend since 1964 is in this camp. He'll be visiting this weekend and GT12 will do it's best to attack this thinking.

A small detail from the NYT/CBS poll:

Nearly as many of Mrs. Clinton's backers say they are supporting her because of her husband as say they are supporting her because of her own experience.

Hucka-Round Up

a Collection of snippets by and about The Apotheosis Of Christianist Candidacy: Mike Huckabee

"It doesn't embarrass me one bit to let you know that I believe Adam and Eve were real people," - Mike Huckabee, 1990.

"I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ."-- Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), quoted by the Arkansas Democrat Gazette on June 8, 1998, on "why he left pastoring for politics."

...

"Mike Huckabee promises us a foreign policy that will make sure that America repeatedly bursts into flame for all of eternity," - Daniel Larison.

...

I feel homosexuality is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk," Mike Huckabee in a questionnaire for The Associated Press in 1992

"If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague.... It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents." - AP 1992 questionaire

"In a quick check of Republican reaction after the AP story broke, some conservatives said they viewed Huckabee’s answers as a blunt statement of views held by many in his Southern Baptist flock, and an antidote to the waffling that pervades politics.
So it may turn out that his more damaging answer was not the one about his view of homosexuality but rather his foray into federal policy – quarantining AIDS patients and cutting funding for research. - Politico.com coverage of the above comments.

...

From Newsweek: Republican state Rep. Jeremy Hutchinson says Huckabee has an explosive temper. He recalls one heated conversation with Huckabee about a health bill Hutchinson didn't want to support. Huckabee began screaming at him, and banged his fists on his desk so hard that "trinkets started falling off." ...

Jim Hendren, the state's Senate minority whip, says he gave up trying to debate issues with Huckabee. "It was like you became the enemy," he says. "There wasn't ever a negotiation. It was, 'It's going to be my way or else'."

....

"A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ." - text of a Southern Baptist Convention full-page ad in USA Today in 1998 that Mike Huckabee signed

...

On the Drummond case:

Huckabee supported the release of Dumond from prison, backed by fervent anti-Clinton activists. According to several parole board members, he even lobbied the board on Dumond's behalf. The frighteningly prescient warnings of Dumond's victims were seemingly left ignored.

....For nearly a decade, conservative activists in Arkansas had painted Dumond as a tragic victim of Bill Clinton's power-hungry machinations. Ashley Stevens, Dumond's rape victim, was Clinton's distant cousin. Within Republican circles, the logic was that if they were to regain political power, it would be through lashing out against rulings like Dumond's.

O Power

The polls are all over the place, but I want people to see that the time can be NOW and not later for Barry O

Obama Leads by Six in South Carolina

A new Insider Advantage poll in South Carolina finds Sen. Barack Obama leading the Democratic presidential race with 28% support, followed by Sen. Hillary Clinton at 22%, John Edwards at 14% and Sen. Joe Biden at 10%.

Said pollster Matt Towery: “Obama’s support among African-Americans rose a bit over the weekend, while Clinton’s dropped. This follows our poll of late last week in which there was a major shift in black voters towards Obama. ... Clearly the Oprah Winfrey visit to the state moved African-American voters."

We're Watching ...

our old county ....

Surprise for Democrats in OH-5?

There's a special election today in Ohio's 5th congressional district and the Cleveland Plain Dealer notes "deep pockets are emptying with last-minute contributions in the race" to determine the successor to the late Rep. Paul Gillmor (R-OH) "and will signal whether this traditional GOP stronghold has gone Democratic."

CQ rates the district Safe Republican, but according to The Politico, an internal poll conducted for Bob Latta’s (R) campaign last week showed him trailing Amy Weirauch (D) by four points.

The Hammer Of The Gods Flies Again

How Can You Not Feel Good About This?

Interesting ... Jimmy looks more better now than in the '90's when I saw both the tours with Robert. There is hope for those of us of the whiter shades of hair.

Eternal Hippie David Fricke writes in Rolling Stone

Zeppelin did not walk or waltz through any of tonight’s sixteen songs. You could hear the care, the weeks of practice that started back in June, in the live debut of “For Your Life” from the 1976 album Presence, a song which, according to Plant in our recent cover story, the band tried in the first rehearsals but dropped after two days. Obviously, there was no staying away from its eccentric oceanic chop. There was no getting away from the warhorses either. “No Quarter” came with the obligatory dry ice. “There are certain things we had to do — this is one of them,” Plant said, almost in apology, introducing “Dazed and Confused.” Page was soon back in ancient ritual — pulling long wah-wah groans from his Gibson Les Paul with a violin bow under a rotating steeple of green-laser beams.

More impressive, though, was the fresh tension in the song’s slow-drag sections as Page, Jones and Bonham pulled at the tempo, heightening the expectation between Page’s bent-note growls and Bonham’s thundercrack rolls with extra delay. “Stairway to Heaven” was also not quite its overfamiliar self, and refreshing for it, Page fingerpicking the opening motif and hitting the ringing twelve-string chords with a relaxed, folk-rock grace, echoing Plant’s thousand-yard stare as he sang “And it makes me wonder . . .” The inevitable “Whole Lotta Love,” the first encore, was almost identical to the second-album script except for a short, tantalizing passage of raw-blues argument after the whooping-theremin blowout — no drums, no bass, just Plant and Page’s guitar snapping at each other like junkyard dogs.

J.M.U.S.

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom – Mitt Romney

Absolute Rubbish.

What Do God the Father, Allah, Shiva, The Holy Spirit and the Virgin Birth of Jesus all have in common with Santa, Harry Potter and Republican Logic?

They are all JUST MADE UP SHIT.

I am sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick sick and, finally, sick to fucking death of Religion.

I'm not going to complain here of the countless depravities committed in the name of Religion. I'll blame humans for that. And I'll attack it regularly elsewhere.

No, I just want to vent that I am tired of being told about the importance of believing in fairy tales.

Look, I understand that we all miss our imaginary friends from our child hood and that holding onto the ridiculous and unsupportable belief in god allows us to not have to grieve that loss completely but my tolerance has (illiberally?) expired.

I am now committed to telling believers that they have to wise-the-fuck-up and face the music (Led Zeppelin?). There is no god. At first it will hurt to accept this. It will lead to a period of adjustment while you realize that your morality, honor, reason for living etc. are all the result of the love and guidance of your family and friends. It will be weird to realize that all those nice feelings you experience in church are just simply your unfettered unifying with your neighbors and not the result of a magic man in the skies pouring down warm fuzzies to you (see Emile Durkheim).

Soon you will discover the relief that comes from not worrying that some work of Literature or Science will NOT endanger you kids morals. You will no longer waste time arguing about how many angels fit on the head of the pin. The word Darwin will no longer immediately and Pavlovianly bring up jabs of fear and threat. Christmas will be even more fun because you won't ever have to sing Silent Night again. You'll get to watch all the Sunday morning pundits without guilt.

So, just stop the madness, stop the denial, stop being just plain stoooooooopid.

Happy Fucking Holidays.

But At Least Our Republican Candidates Know God

Snowday!

Fool Me Twice, Shame On Me

Barry O is running hard on the position that his judgement is superior to HRC (Her Royal Clintoness) AND therefore more important than her experience (of failed judgement and failed effort).

Lest you doubt that he's right, let's look at The Washington Post from January 20, 2007 (Two years prior to the day one of them will take the Oath Of Office):

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) accused the Bush administration of playing down the threat of a nuclear Iran and called for swift action at the United Nations to impose sanctions on the Iranian government.

The senator's statements, in which she said the administration should make it clear that all options remain on the table for dealing with the Iranians, came during a speech about the Middle East on Wednesday night at Princeton University. She criticized the White House for turning the problem over to European nations and said Iran must never be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons.

I believe we lost critical time in dealing with Iran because the White House chose to downplay the threats and to outsource the negotiations," Clinton said. "I don't believe you face threats like Iran or North Korea by outsourcing it to others and standing on the sidelines."

Clinton, who began running for the Presidency 'the day [s]he entered the Senate' has calculatedly tried to position herself just to the right of Cheney to show us that she's got, uh, balls. She bet that the Iraq adventure would be a success and wanted to be on the winning side and so voted to give the NeoconPuppetIn Chief whatever he wanted. Still on a testosterone drip, she voted to create the same scenario for Iran.

Now, do you want that vowing to protect our constitution?

God Save (us from) The Queen - Updated

She shows all the signs of a spoiled child to whom no one has ever said 'NO'. This is why she must not be the nominee.

F Her.

"They really, really hate Obama," one Democratic operative unaffiliated with any campaign, tells me. "They can't stand him. They talk about him as if he's worse than Bush." What do they hate about him? After all, there aren't a lot of deep policy differences between the two, and he hasn't gone for the jugular during the campaign. "It's his presumptuousness," this operative says. "That he thinks he can deny her the nomination. Who is he to try to do that?" You mean, he's, uh, uppity? "Yes." A senior House Democratic aide notes, "The Clinton people are going nuts in how much they hate him. But the problem is their narrative has gone beyond the plausible."

More Democracy For My Home State

Shortly after The Republicans lost every statewide office in Ohio last November, the State Capital's young but reasonably promising Progressive radio station was turned into a Right-Wing station. Ratings for that station have dropped 60% and it is now in last place. The Legacy of Ken Blackwell.

Starting on Monday, Progressive radio returns to Columbus OH. this is a victory for organized lefties who fought to get all sides of the spectrum on the air in Ohio.

Now, my oldest friend needs to start listening to Stephanie Miller (much smarter than Howard Stern!)

Thanks to the efforts of Ohio Majority Radio and longtime radio executive Gary Richards, central Ohioans will once again hear progressive talk from favorites like Stephanie Miller, Ed Schultz, and Randi Rhodes. We'll also hear coverage of local high school football, boys and girls basketball, and other local sports.

It all starts at 6 AM this Monday, December 3rd. Tune to AM 1580 WVKO.
How can an individual listener like you help keep Progressive Talk radio on the air?
Contribute to Progress Ohio's radio ad campaign fund!

By donating to Progress Ohio's radio ad campaign fund, you will not only be helping keep Progressive Talk on the air, you'll be supporting Progress Ohio's 112 community partnerships.

It's been a long road to secure Progressive Talk radio in Columbus. After all this hard work, let's do everything we can to keep it on the air.

Now that it's back, click here to support WVKO's Progressive Programmi

Theocrat Ethics

Why should we wait? Here's some opening info on the Reverend Huckabee:

From Polico.com (11/21/07)

But his career has also been colored by 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor’s office.

Some of the ethics complaints deal with fairly penny ante stuff, and most were dismissed.

They did, however, yield five admonitions and $1,000 in fines from Arkansas' Ethics Commission and, perhaps more significantly, a pattern that strategists for two competing GOP campaigns privately predict could become fodder for attacks playing on the culture-of-corruption theme Democrats used to pound Republicans in the 2006 midterm elections.

In fact, when Huckabee entered the presidential race in January, the Democratic National Committee was quick to highlight a couple of the ethics issues that have dogged him and urged him to “come clean about his … history of ethical lapses."

... Huckabee’s campaign, in a statement to Politico, said it was “suspect” that the ethics issues are being raised as Huckabee surges in the polls and said Huckabee repeatedly addressed the issues during his time as governor.

The campaign said the state ethics commission, which Huckabee sued twice, “has been misused as a weapon against Republicans” and that Huckabee “has been unfairly attacked regarding his ethics history while governor of Arkansas.”

... The ethics commission fined Huckabee $1,000 for failing to report that he paid himself $14,000 from his 1992 U.S. Senate campaign and $43,000 from his 1994 lieutenant governor's campaign.

The latter payment — for the use of his eight-seat, twin-engine plane — was reported in a cryptic way that didn’t identify Huckabee and his wife as the owners of the plane.

... Huckabee unintentionally failed to disclose $23,500 he received from a nonprofit organization set up to handle his speaking engagements and supplement his income before he became governor.

... Allegations by a former governor’s mansion employee in 1998 became part of the basis for a lawsuit against Huckabee over his family’s use of a $60,000-a-year fund. The lawsuit also dealt with Huckabee’s assertion that $70,000 worth of furniture donated to the governor's mansion was his to keep.

... As the Huckabees prepared to leave the governor’s mansion last year for a private home in the Little Rock suburbs, Janet Huckabee’s friends set up registries on two stores' websites listing $7,000 worth of housewarming gifts, ranging from napkins to a $300 KitchenAid mixer.

... Before leaving office Jan. 9, Huckabee spent $13,000 in state funds to destroy the hard drives of nearly 100 computers in the governor’s office.

A lawyer is suing Huckabee, alleging that he misspent state money on the destruction

Q.E.D.

The first time (out of a total of oh, two) that I ever entered a 'chat room' I was called a 'conserv-o-phobe' within about 5 minutes.

I have always thought that I am simply a stupid-o-phobe and even more importantly, a fascist-o-phobe.

As you know, I have repeatedly pointed out over the last few years that The Right, particularly the 'values voter' / Capital 'C' christian right, is not about the teachings of Jesus. Nor the Constitution. They are about authoritarianism.

I have asserted that the teachings of an unemployed (an-unmarried) hippie communist from Nazareth has no bearing on what they actually believe. Nor does the Constitution.

I have said that Authoritarians use ideology simply as a frame work upon which they hang justifications for their desire to bully and control.

I have expressed my concern about the similarities between Jesus' and Elvis' fan clubs.

So?

Joe Klein attended a focus group of Republican voters as they watched the debate this week. the Focus Group was conducted by Frank Luntz, the mad genius behind coining the term "Healthy Forests Initiative" for policies by the Bush administration that favor expanded logging by the logging industry, the term, "Death tax," and "energy exploration" (oil drilling).

In the next segment--the debate between Romney and Mike Huckabee over Huckabee's college scholarships for the deserving children of illegal immigrants--I noticed something really distressing: When Huckabee said, "After all, these are children of God," the dials plummeted. And that happened time and again through the evening: Any time any candidate proposed doing anything nice for anyone poor, the dials plummeted (30s). These Republicans were hard.

But there was worse to come: When John McCain started talking about torture--specifically, about waterboarding--the dials plummeted again. Lower even than for the illegal Children of God. Down to the low 20s, which, given the natural averaging of a focus group, is about as low as you can go. Afterwards, Luntz asked the group why they seemed to be in favor of torture. "I don't have any problem pouring water on the face of a man who killed 3000 Americans on 9/11," said John Shevlin, a retired federal law enforcement officer. The group applauded, appallingly.

They also hated anything that Ron Paul said (high 30s to low 20s), especially on the war in Iraq.

They tended to like Huckabee a lot (60s to 80s anytime he opened his mouth), but afterwards most said he was too extreme, religiously, to be President. Really, they did.

OK, was I being too nice? Too understanding?

Take Your Pick

Talk about 'what your definition of 'is' is' ...

Rudy gives round-the-clock versions of what all that security expense for his affair with future wife Judith Nathan were for.

From Salon:

Explanation No. 1: No explanation whatsoever. When the Politico explained the charges it would be making to a Giuliani spokeswoman before the story appeared, the spokeswoman declined to comment at all.

Explanation No. 2: "It's not true." At the GOP presidential debate Wednesday night, Anderson Cooper asked Giuliani whether, as mayor, "you took trips to the Hamptons and expensed the costs of your police detail to obscure city offices." "First of all, it's not true," Giuliani said. Then, after saying that he needed security because he was the subject of threats, Giuliani said that the security teams "put in their records, and they handled them in the way they handled them. I had nothing to do with the handling of their records, and they were handled, as far as I know, perfectly appropriately." Giuliani hasn't explained what wasn't "true" about the story, and in fact, no one is disputing the basic allegation: that the security expenses were billed to obscure city agencies rather than to the NYPD.

Explanation No. 3: It's a "hit job." After the GOP debate, Giuliani speculated that the Politico piece might be the handiwork of one of the other presidential campaigns -- but only a Democratic campaign, of course. "I would not accuse any of my opponents of doing it," he said. "But who knows, it could be on the Democratic side." If Giuliani had any evidence that a rival campaign was behind the story, he didn't offer it.

Explanation No. 4: Everybody does it like this. Shortly after the Politico story broke, Joe Lhota, a deputy mayor under Giuliani, told the Daily News that the practice of billing obscure city offices for mayoral security has "gone on for years" and "predates Giuliani." When told Thursday that spokesmen for Giuliani's predecessors disagreed, Lhota said he needed to "reverse" himself. "I'm just going to talk about the Giuliani era," he said. "I should only talk about what I know about."

Explanation No. 5: Whatever it was, it wasn't a coverup: Having abandoned his "everybody does it" defense, Lhota told the Daily News Thursday: "I don't understand when it started. I don't understand why it started. But I do know one thing: It was consistently done ... in no way shape or form did it imply a coverup." But as the New York Times has reported, when a city auditor started asking questions about $34,000 in security-travel expenses he found in the city's Loft Board's ledgers in 2001, Giuliani's office "refused" to answer, citing "security" concerns.

Explanation No. 6: We were helping the cops. On Thursday -- the same day he told the Daily News that he didn't "understand why it started" -- Lohta told the Associated Press that the security expenses were paid out of offices tied to City Hall rather than by the NYPD itself because the NYPD took too long to reimburse the poor police officers assigned to Giuliani's detail. At the end of each year, Lohta said, the NYPD would reimburse the various city agencies that had been stuck with the tab in the meantime. But even if that's true, it doesn't explain why the costs were distributed among random city offices rather than paid out of a single budget account, which is how city comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. tells the Times it should have been done.

Barry O, Jesus Creeping up In Polls

Wait til the news people start looking inot Huckabee's finances in Arkansas ... What Would Jesus Give as a going away gift?

Anyway ...

New Polls Show Clinton Fading, Huckabee Rising

The American Research Group released new polls from Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. In the Democratic presidential race:
Iowa: Obama 27%, Clinton 25%, Edwards 23%
New Hampshire: Clinton 34%, Obama 23%, Edwards 17%
South Carolina: Clinton 45%, Obama 21%, Edwards 12%

Key findings: Since the last ARG survey, Clinton has dropped 10 points among women in Iowa and she has dropped 17 points among men in New Hampshire.

In the Republican presidential race:
Iowa: Romney 28%, Huckabee 27%, Thompson 14%, Giuliani 9%, McCain 9%
New Hampshire: Romney 36%, Giuliani 22%, Huckabee 13%, McCain 11%
South Carolina: Giuliani 23%, Romney 21%, Huckabee 18%, Thompson 13%, McCain 10%

Key findings: Since the last ARG survey, Huckabee has gained 8 points in Iowa and 13 points in South Carolina.

Fox In The Hen House

From the Wall Street Journal On-line

Head of Rove Inquiry in Hot Seat Himself
Bloch Used Private Company,Geeks on Call, to Delete FilesOn His Office Computer
By JOHN R. WILKENovember 28, 2007; Page A6

WASHINGTON -- The head of the federal agency investigating Karl Rove's White House political operation is facing allegations that he improperly deleted computer files during another probe, using a private computer-help company, Geeks on Call.

Scott Bloch runs the Office of Special Counsel, an agency charged with protecting government whistleblowers and enforcing a ban on federal employees engaging in partisan political activity. Mr. Bloch's agency is looking into whether Mr. Rove and other White House officials used government agencies to help re-elect Republicans in 2006.

At the same time, Mr. Bloch has himself been under investigation since 2005. At the direction of the White House, the federal Office of Personnel Management's inspector general is looking into claims that Mr. Bloch improperly retaliated against employees and dismissed whistleblower cases without adequate examination.